The Viaduct Murder

dining-room table was bare, but Monday’s paper was still lying across a chair, as if thrown down at random. On the whole the evidence pointed to Monday as the day of departure; Monday, not Tuesday, appeared on a tear-off calendar; a letter which had arrived on Monday evening was still waiting in the hall; and there were no clothes left in the dirty-clothes basket. Such an authority did Gordon feel himself to be on the subject of washing since his experiences at Binver that he investigated equally the clothes which had come back from the wash, and the list which accompanied them. And here was a curious phenomenon; the list referred to two collars, two handkerchiefs, and a pair of socks as having been disgorged by the Binver authorities, but none of these seemed to have crystallized in real life. “Binver is doing itself proud,” murmured Gordon to himself, “or could it possibly be⁠—” He went and looked in the bathroom again: there was the sponge all right, which seemed to insist that Davenant kept a duplicate series of what the shops call toilet accessories; but where was the razor, the shaving soap, the toothbrush? It seemed, after all, as if Davenant had packed for the week instead of leaving a duplicate weekend set behind him. But⁠—Good Lord! This was still more curious. There was no soap in the bathroom, although there were traces of its presence still discernible. Surely no one packing after a weekend in the country took the soap with him? The face-towel, too, was gone; yet the face-towel was distinctly mentioned in the washing-list. No, decidedly there was something wrong about Davenant’s exit.

Another curious thing⁠—there was every evidence that Davenant was a smoker, and yet not a cigarette, not a pipe, not an ounce of tobacco left in the study. Of course, it was possible that Sullivan was very tidy and put them away somewhere, or that he was dishonest, and treated them as perquisites. But once more Gordon had the impression that Davenant had packed like a man who is leaving his base, not like a man who has just weekended at a Saturday-to-Monday cottage. Like a man going abroad, even, or why did he take the soap with him? One piece of supplementary evidence was to be found in the study. A large and highly ornamented photograph frame stood on the writing-table there; but it had no photograph in it, and the back was unfastened, as if the portrait had been recently and suddenly removed. If circumstantial evidence went for anything, it seemed clear that when Davenant left the house last⁠—apparently on Monday⁠—he left it in the spirit of a man who does not expect to return immediately, and carries all his immediate needs with him.

So far the investigation had proceeded, when Gordon happened to look out of a front window, and was discomposed by observing that Sullivan was coming back already down the lane. There was no time to be lost; he hastily ran downstairs and out at the front door. It would be taking a considerable risk to trust to the mazes of the back garden, and he decided to make for the hedge. But before he could reach it, Sullivan turned the corner into the garden-path and confronted him.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, on the inspiration of the moment, “but could you tell me what Mr. Davenant’s address is? I shall have to write to him, and this is the only address they’ve got up at the Club.”

“Mr. Davenant left no address,” said Sullivan, and, try as he would, Gordon could not determine whether there was suspicion in his tone. However, the awkward corner was turned, and it was with some feeling of self-congratulation that he made his way back to the dormy-house.

He came back to find Reeves closeted with Marryatt and Carmichael, to whom he was explaining the whole story of their adventures. “I hope you won’t think it a breach of confidence,” was his explanation, “but the last disappointment I’ve had has made me feel that we must be on the wrong tack somewhere; and it’s no good for us two to try and correct each other. It’s like correcting the proofs of a book; you must get an outsider in to do it. So I thought, as Marryatt and Carmichael were with us at the start, it would be best to take them fully into our confidence, and make a foursome of it.”

“Delighted,” said Gordon. “I’ve been prospecting a bit, but I can’t say I’ve got much forrarder.”

“Did you ask whether Davenant was there yesterday?”

“Yes, I interviewed Sullivan on the subject, and he said ‘No.’ ”

“That I can’t believe,” said Carmichael.

“Why, what about it?” asked Gordon, a little ruffled.

“I’m sure Sullivan didn’t say ‘No.’ Have you never observed that an Irishman is incapable of saying yes or no to a plain question? If you say, Has the rain stopped, he won’t say Yes, or No; he’ll say, It has, or It hasn’t. The explanation of that is a perfectly simple one: there is no native word for either in Irish, any more than there is in Latin. And that in its turn throws a very important light on the Irish character⁠—”

“Oh, go and throw an important light on your grandmother’s ducks,” said Reeves. “I want to hear about this interview. Was he telling the truth, d’you think?”

“From his manner, I thought not. So, when his back was turned, I made bold to enter the house and take a look round for myself.” And he described the evening’s entertainment in detail.

“By Jove, you are warming to the part,” said Marryatt. “I should like to see you get run in by the police, Gordon.”

“You say,” Reeves interrupted, “that you don’t think he was there yesterday, on the Tuesday, that is, because he hadn’t taken the letter away. He went off, then, on Monday, but when he went off he took with him all that a man normally takes with him if